Oh, You Beautiful Doll When You Pay $47,000 For An Antique, Collecting Is No Longer Child's Play

September 26, 1988|by TIM BLANGGER, The Morning Call

Richard Wright isn't the kind of person you'd expect to plunk down $47,000 for a doll.

Then again, it is hard to think of exactly the kind of person who would.

A few years ago this person might have been older, a wealthy collector, perhaps, with a home filled with so many dolls that you might have to move a few to find a comfortable seat.

Today, given the attractive investment opportunities rare dolls in particular offer, that person might have been more like an investment banker with power tie, Italian briefcase and very soft, very expensive leather shoes.

Sitting in his Birchrunville, Chester County, shop one day last week, Wright was dressed casually: jeans, colorful shirt, several pieces of silver jewelry with turquoise insets and an earring. It is clear he is is neither an elderly collector driven by musty sentimentality nor a banker motivated only by greed.

At 41, he is an antiques dealer and a noted, enthusiastic doll and toy collector.

"To me, dolls and toys are more interesting than collecting stamps," Wright said, sitting on an antique chair in his shop. "Besides, stamps are easier to lose."

In buying the rare artist doll last month at an auction in Anaheim, Calif., Wright set a U.S. auction record for dolls.

The record doll in question was a Kammer & Reinhardt Model 106 built shortly after the turn of the century in Germany. It was used as a model salesmen would take to the toy fairs of the time. If buyers didn't show sufficient interest in the model, then the models were usually destroyed.

The entire line was unique, doll collectors say, because each of the models had a distinctive expression. Artists dolls in general were a reaction to the static look of mass-produced dolls of the period and many were indeed designed and sculpted by artists.

Wright's Model 106 does not bear the usual K & R stamp a mass-produced doll would bear, making it even rarer than other Kammer and Reinhardt dolls. Wright's has a black pencil marking that states "Model 106" on the back of its porcelain head.

The doll itself is from the collection of Californian Lucy Earle, whose estate donated more than 300 dolls, including Model 106, to the California Institute of the Arts in Valencia. The Anaheim auction raised more than $125,000 in art scholarships for the institute.

Before the Lucy Earle collection surfaced, Wright knew of only three other Model 106 dolls. Most of the others were destroyed by the company when the models attracted insufficient commercial interest.

Wright's Model 106 is a 23-inch doll with a black suit and hat. Its face has a distinctive expression. The head, in fact, is what Wright really bought. The body is a French-type doll body not compatible with the German dolls of the period, Wright says.

"This one supposedly turned up in Paris in the late '50s or early '60s," Wright says, talking quickly. "There was a time when there were a bunch of old heads that popped up in a warehouse. I have a feeling this was one of them. The body it is on is incorrect, a French body. I really just bought a head."

So, that is roughly $200 for the body of composite wood, and $46,800 for the head.

"I've been collecting these kinds of dolls for 25 years," Wright said. In all, there were several models numbered from 100 to 114. Now, he only lacks a Model 105. He knows where one is, and suspects others will show up once word gets around about the price the Model 106 brought.

"The people who had these dolls as children are probably still alive," Wright said. "They (the dolls) are in drawers or attics somewhere."

Once he gets a Model 105, Wright figures his collection will significantly increase in value, as collectibles usually do.

"Dolls are a very good investment," Wright says. "Then again, you have to like them. A lot of people make mistakes. They invest in them but have no feeling for it. They buy the stuff and find out there is a crack in it. Once it is cracked, the value drops by half. It's the head that's important. You have to watch and make sure it is completely right or can be made completely right."

"It sounds crazy, but you got to know the business. I said a couple of years ago, the darn things (dolls) are going to start bringing $30,000, $40,000, $50,000. No one believed me."

Clearly, things have changed.

"You're starting to see that more and more," says Julie Collier of the Wright purchase. Collier is director of collectibles at Christies East, one of two major auction houses in New York.

"Dolls are pretty safe investments, and the collecting base is so broad. The market is very stable for that reason. You're not going to buy something, pay $2,000 and then three years later you can't give it away. That usually does not happen when you get such a broad collecting base. Changes don't happen that frequently. Sometimes three or four wealthy buyers control the market, but that's not the case with dolls. They are one of the strongest of the collectibles and one of the best investments, and one of the safer ones, too."